Abstract

Objective: This study was carried out to determine the difficulties that nurses working at palliative clinic had while caring dying patients.

Method: The research was designed as a qualitative research design. The sample consisted of 9 nurses working in the palliative care clinic of a state hospital in Istanbul.

Results: The findings of the study were examined under 5 themes which are nurses’ opinions on the concept of death, the difficulties they experience in caring for the dying patient, the difficulties they experience with patients’ relatives, the changes they experience in their private lives and their thoughts about death. When these themes were examined, the difficulties nurses had while providing care to dying patients were to be as follows: feeling the necessity to give constant positive feedback, not being able to communicate, the abundance of intercultural differences, the inability to relieve the pain, the excess of the reactions and expectations of the relatives of the patients, the patients and their families’ not being informed enough about the process by other health personnel.

Conclusion: As a result of the study, it was found that nurses had difficulties in caring for the dying patient and meeting the expectations of patients’ relatives, and meanwhile, working in palliative care unit caused changes in their personal characteristics and perspectives on death.